1. Field of the Technology
This application involves the cyclical extrusion of materials to generate nanosized grain features to improve the strength of extruded products.
2. Brief Description of Related Developments
Nanostructured materials are generally regarded as materials having very small grain feature size in the range of 1-100 nanometers (10−9 meters). These materials have the potential for wide ranging industrial, biomedical and electronic applications. As a result, a great deal of study is ongoing to gain a better understanding of the characteristics of these materials. Metals, ceramics, polymeric and composite materials may be processed in a variety of ways to form nanosized features. One such method under study is an extrusion process that provides a cyclical compression.
It is a purpose of this application to adapt extrusion technology such as described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,533,565 and 6,945,764 to perform a cyclical extrusion of materials by laminating layers of flowing material, multiplying the flow and further laminating and dividing the material flow to generate small grain features and improve strength. It is a further purpose of this application to combine the resulting output flow with a rotating die head, as described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,447,279 and 6,669,458 to form a tubular product having very small grain features.